Why are these tools better for UI design than Photoshop or Illustrator?

Some people say that tools cannot make you a better UI designer, saying “the tool is just a tool,” like a pen is to a writer. However, I believe it’s much more than just that.

A better tool will make you a better UI designer.

Why is that?

A tool that makes common UI design tasks easier and faster allows you to try more iterations of design.The time you previously spent on fighting the tool, you can now spend on elaborating your design.

Limited set of visual effects in modern UI tools allows you to focus on basic design principles instead of decoration effects.

Modern UI tools emphasize usage of components, which help you to be more consistent in your designs.

The tools make collaboration and getting feedback easy, which is crucial for good UI design.

Last but not least, these tools better support modern UI workflows.

Modern UI design workflow

Traditionally, user interfaces were designed as high-fidelity mockups in Photoshop. They were then delivered to stakeholders for approval. With the expansion of mobile apps and websites becoming more and more complex, such approach isn’t sustainable anymore.

Instead:

We start with low fidelity mockups so we can quickly move to the prototyping and testing phase.

We try to design for constraints to which our components are exposed instead of designing for endless screen resolutions.

We design new features by composing existing components. If features require new components, we can design them in the context of the new feature and add back to our library.

Common characteristics of modern UI design tools

Modern UI tools like Figma or Adobe XD try to keep up with this speed of the modern workflow. Here are some common characteristics of them:

They are lightweight and fast

They have limited functionality with focus on UI design (sometimes too limited, as they are often beta versions)

They are vector based

They have an advanced and easy to use artboards functionality to allow many design versions. Figma takes this even further with frames (more on them below)

They implement components (Figma) or symbols (Adobe XD, Affinity Designer) which allow the reuse and easy update of common visual elements across the project

They use constraints (Figma, Affinity Designer) to control behaviour of child elements

They allow sharing designs for online viewing and feedback

They implement prototyping (Adobe XD, Figma) or integrate with 3rd party prototyping tools

Let’s get to designing

Let’s compare Adobe XD, Figma, and Affinity Designer on a small design project. Our goal is to create a team page that would display team members and allow a new team member to apply.

This is what I created in Adobe XD:

Team List designed in Adobe XD

Thank you page designed in Adobe XD

…and for comparison, this is the same design made in Figma:

Figma – the most noticeable difference in is background blur on the images. Adobe XD does them more nicely

Let’s break down how we got to these designs and describe some differences in the process of particular tools.

Getting to know the tools

We will start by exploring the tools’ user interfaces.

Adobe XD

You can install Adobe XD from the list of apps in the Creative Cloud application. If you don’t have a Creative Cloud subscription, you should still be able to download Adobe XD beta for free, you just need to sign in.

Once you open XD you will be welcome by a minimalist, modern interface:

Adobe XD interface (click on the image for large version)

The hamburger menu on the top left hides menu for the files operations. Right from it there are two tabs for switching between the Design and Prototype mode.

Below, starting from left, there is a tool box with common tools like Select, Rectangle, Ellipse, Line, Pen, Text, and Artboard. On the bottom there are icons for Layers and Symbols.

In the middle, there is a canvas to which you can add an unlimited number of artboards. Once you select the artboard tool you can choose from predefined artboard sizes, like ‘iPhone 7’, etc.

On the right, there is a property inspector, which displays all options of the currently selected item. The property inspector cannot be hidden for now.

A small disadvantage is that XD doesn’t use tabs for different files, so if you have more files opened they will be grouped under the application icon in the taskbar.

Adobe XD doesn’t have guidesor rulers at the moment.

Figma

While Figma is a web based tool, I strongly recommend getting a desktop app. Not only does it allow the use of keyboard shortcuts more consistently, but working with the desktop app gives you a somewhat more realistic feeling. Even though Figma is fast as a web app, it feels even faster as a desktop app.

Figma desktop app displayed (click on the image for large version)

On the top we have the application menu, which is a duplicate of the hamburger menu used in the web app. Below there is a row with the clock icon linking to the dashboard with your files, then the tabs with opened files.

Next to the hamburger menu there is a toolbox with Move tools (Move, Scale), Shape Tools (Rectangle, Line, Arrow, Ellipse, Polygon, Star and Place image), a Pen tool, Text tool, Team Library, and Comments. In the middle you can rename a file, and on the right there is a Share button, View settings, Zoom level, and Export functionality.

Below is the Objects panel, with frames, groups, and layers, followed by the canvas and Properties Panel.

The slightly more complex interface of Affinity Designer is reminiscent of Photoshop or Illustrator. We can see this is a multipurpose tool oriented on illustrators too.

Contrary to Figma and Adobe XD, it allows you to reorganize panels. It also has advanced grid and guides managers.

Grid and guides manager in Affinity Designer

Framing your design – artboards

When you create a new file in one of the tools, you will start with an empty canvas. On the canvas, you can create an unlimited number of artboards. An artboard is like a frame for your design.

You can choose from predefined artboard sizes – like Desktop/Web, iPhone, iPad, Android/Google phone and tables – or create a custom one.

Figma takes the concept of artboards even further – instead of artboards, it uses frames, and you can nest one frame within another.

Frames in Figma is one of its most powerful features.

A frame creates a new context for its child elements – you can align them to the frame bounds and also set constraints in that respect. For example, if the parent frame expands, the child element can stick to one side of it, scale with it, etc.

This is very much like front-end development, where child elements are nested in parent elements in the DOM tree. Designing in Figma is a lot about creating frames to group elements or components.

As you can see in the following image, you can manipulate the frame in many ways and also set constraints.

In Figma, everything can be framed

Contrary to that of Figma, in Adobe XD you can only group related elements, as group options are quite limited. You cannot align child elements within a group, and Adobe XD doesn’t implement constraints. However, it’s quite likely it will come with them or with a similar system quite soon.

Adobe XD only has groups

Affinity Designer is somewhere between Figma and Adobe XD. It uses group and also implements constraints. The groups create bounds for the child elements.

Connecting the dots – prototyping

When someone submits our contact form, they get to the ‘Thank you’ page. In Adobe XD we can describe this relation in the Prototype mode. In the design mode we can duplicate the ‘Team list’ artboard and change it to the ‘Thanks’ artboard; then we can set connection from one artboard to another.

This allows us to think about the flow on our website or in our application from the beginning of the design process, because it helps us think of questions, like “How does the user gets back from the thank you page?” This way we can often remember missing UI parts or tweak the UI in a way that working with static screens wouldn’t allow us.

Designing effectively – symbols and components

In the previous section we have duplicated the ‘Team’ artboard to make the new ‘Thank you’ page. Notice how both the Team and Thanks page share some parts, like header and footer; we will make these parts reusable so later we can update them easily.

In Adobe XD we can achieve this by using symbols. For now, the symbols implementation in Adobe XD is pretty basic, it means you can only override texts and bitmaps in symbol’s instances. When you update any other property of any instance, like color, all symbols update as well.

Figma not only calls the reusable parts differently (‘components’) but also implements them in other ways, which allows for much more customization of them. The main difference is that when you convert an element to a component in Figma, it becomes a master component. Instances are true instances, and any overrides to them do not automatically update the master component.

Components in Figma are more advanced

Figma also has a special feature called Team Library, which allows the sharing of components across the files. If you add a component to the Library, it becomes available in other files and you can update your components from the libraries.

Updating components from Team Library in Figma

This is a great feature to build a components library or a design system. Note, that since July 1st, this feature is only available in the paid plans. If you’d like to use components on the free plan, you will have to store them in the same file when they are used.

Symbols in Affinity Designer work similarly to those in Adobe XD, but you can override more properties of the instance. Components cannot be shared across more files either.

Designing effectively, pt. 2 – repeat grid and layout grid

Adobe XD implements Repeat Grid for easy replication of elements. Check out a small demonstration that shows how easily we can update and repeat elements:

Adobe XD repeat grid is easy to work with; we can update content by dropping images and a text file on them

Figma doesn’t have a functionality for repeating elements, but it has Layout Grids, which allow you to define a custom grid and allows control alignment and behaviour of the elements on the grid.

Figma’s Layout Grids

Designing for constraints

Figma’s constraints allow you to resize the master frame and control position, scale, etc. of the child elements. Always try to think about and set constraints of the child elements right away to save you time later.

Constraints demonstration in Figma

Constraints can be partially used with a layout grid, but the grid itself doesn’t change when the parent element is resized (unlike, say, how Flexbox would do it). To change the position of elements on the layout grid, you need change the number of rows and reposition the elements.

Adobe XD doesn’t have constraints implemented, at the moment. When you resize artboards, elements on it don’t resize. When you resize groups, their content resizes, but sometimes in a way you don’t intend them to.

When you resize groups in Adobe XD, some child elements may resize in a weird way

High-fidelity design

Once you have the basics of your design done, you may want to give it a few bells and whistles here and there.

All three tools can accomplish most of the task you may need for UI, but of course, they cannot fully compete with Photoshop or Illustrator. On the other hand, however, using colors, gradients, effects like shadows or background blur, or masking is often easier and more intuitive in these tools.

If there is some feature lacking that is easier work with the text styles. Currently only Affinity Designer allows you to define text styles, although their usage is a bit cumbersome.

If you want to reuse text in Adobe XD, you have to use symbols. In Figma you can use text components, and use them inside other components.

Conclusion – the ideal tool

For me, the ideal tool would be a Figma with two features added from Adobe XD – repeat grids and a prototyping functionality. Figma’s frames/constraints system is superior to anything I’ve seen in UI design tools so far. Once you get used to it, it’s hard going back to anything less advanced. It shouldn’t be difficult to add basic prototyping to Figma, or at least an integration with more prototyping tools, and I expect we will see it this year.

Because Figma is web based, it was immediately available on all operating systems. Adobe XD “lost” over the last few months trying to catch up on the Mac version; during this time, new features were rarely added. Hopefully, the next months will bring more new features, especially constraints or a system similar to them.

Affinity Designer is a bit on its own – it’s a powerful tool and its focus is not solely on UI design. This can be both an advantage or a disadvantage for someone. Together with Affinity Photo it can be a great combo for a designer who doesn’t work very often with other designers. For many people, the one time fee can also be attractive.

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About the author

Lubos Kmetko started to work for Xfive (formerly XHTMLized) as a front-end developer in 2006. He currently helps with business operations and writes for the Xfive blog.